“What’s the latest, then?”
Huston Morgan looked quietly at the screen while speaking. “The newest blurb that has been released to the infranet has managed to obtain twenty-three percent more views than the previous one, Huston,” said the A.I. in her soothing voice, which spoke from a jury-rigged panel attached to the monitor.
“Opinions?”
“Polling on our positions is scant. Speculation is that many viewers are concerned that viewing one of yours and Austin’s videos alone may constitute a violation of current PSSR directives from Prime Authority Moreded.”
“What kind of directives again? And from whom exactly, again?”
“P-S-S refers to Peace, Safety, Security and Respect, a set of directives covering new expectations from the Prime Authority, a title that former Viscount Moreded created for himself this morning and made known to New Avalon via the standard information distribution channels-”
“Ah, yes. Fine. Austin!” Huston yelled, his voice carrying throughout the farmhouse, the smile on his face shining brighter than the sun outside.
“Whaaat?” said Austin, his voice carrying through the closed door, cobwebbed by the sleep Huston had interrupted.
“Time to make another vid, Aus. Moreded just gave us another gift; you’ll be able to make fun of this until-”
Huston was suddenly silent.
That made Austin jump out of bed and open the door suddenly to the bedroom he’d commandeered when they first had moved into the abandoned farmhouse. “What made you get quiet all of a su-”
Austin’s voice broke off, too, seeing the two most recent news pieces on the screen in front of them.
On the left half of the screen was their little brother, Dallas Morgan. His profile was the same one used by the Gendarmes and later by Moreded when Dallas was being hunted as a their and held up as an example of all that was wrong with their father’s rule.
Now, the profile was being put to a different use.
On the screen, Huston and Austin saw that the profile had been 3-D printed into a giant statue of their frater minor’s mugshot. It was now nearly six feet tall, made of monocolored gray plascrete, and a good twenty or thirty feet wide at its base.
What was most disturbing to both boys about the news photo were the hundred or so people who were kneeling in a crowd around it. Some were on their knees, some standing with arms outstretched, others jabbering while they hit themselves with cords and whips.
At the bottom of the screen were the words that made both of Dallas’ older brothers’ jaws drop:
CULT OF OLD EARTH GODS FINDS NEW LEADER, DESIGNATES CONFEDERACY NOBLE AS THE NEW AVATAR OF APOLLO…
“…that’s…” said Austin.
“”I know,” said Huston. “That’s bad enough. Look here, at the right-hand side of my monitor. Do you know what this is?”
“Looks like a ton of streaming code.”
“To you, yes. Here, let me put the translator on…”
Huston tapped a few spaces on the holo-keyboard that his pen was projecting onto the desktop. The streams of code on the right side of the floating screen flickered, and then it was Austin’s turn to look dumfounded.
Austin looked at the screen for only a few seconds before a cry of despair escaped his lips. He stood suddenly, walked back and forth while running his fingers through his hair and breathing quickly.
“Aus?” Huston said, “are you alright?”
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Austin stopped and looked at his brother. The room had become very quiet. The half-dozen guards who had been stationed in the farmhouse with the brothers had begun gathering without a sound in the large living room which had effectively become the base of operations for the resistance to Moreded’s rule. They stared with blank faces at Austin’s distress, giving each other sidelong glances as their commander seemed to have a meltdown.
After a minute or so of this upset, something seemed to click in place for Austin. His head snapped up from where it had been staring at the floor, and looked dead in the eyes at Huston. “Give me a gun,” he said quietly.
“Wait, Aus,” Huston said, “Wait, wait…”
“I’ll wait for nothing! Austin snarled, walking up to one of the dozen guards who milled about the house during the day and taking his rifle from him. “I’m head of the army on this miserable ball of dirt! And I’m going to blow a hole in the head of that porcus Moreded, right after I-”
“And I’ve been head of the House of Morgan since the moment that porcus said our pater was dead, Austin! And that means I’m the one who commands you!”
Austin breathed deep, looked at the rifle in his hands, back at the screen, back to Huston. “But you saw, Hughes. You saw! How can you not-”
“Because I know that’s exactly what that fat little sidewinder Moreded wants you to do, Aus! You go and attack his little palace right now? He owns all the big guns in the city. We’ve got the experienced soldiers who deserted him, but he has the raw numbers of idiot teenagers with guns and the few experienced, amoral flupbags who stayed with him for more pay! You go out there alone, you’ll get filled with more holes than a Red Star peace treaty!”
“I’ll bring our rebels. All of them.”
“I’ve already worked that out, moron! You do that, we’re looking at ninety-percent casualties!”
“I’d still win!”
“Yes, and upset a lot of families suddenly bereft of their fathers, uncles, sons and grandfathers, all so you could satisfy your otherwise very justifiable bloodlust! Plus,after you had your fun, we’d be left with nothing to defend ourselves in terms of armed forces if the Red Star, Corporates or anyone else with so much as a bucket of slingshots decided to attack and invade! Understand? It’s the very definition of a pyrrhic victory- oh, blast, you don’t know what that is- it’s like that time we went on that camping trip and you convinced that noble’s son the best way to warm up was to soil his sleeping bag with his own urine! Warm for a few minutes, ten times as miserable for the rest of the trip!”
“I was only joking, Hughes. That idiot was fool enough to believe me!”
“And now you’re actually talking like the Austin I know- the one with a modicum of sense! We keep to the plan, keep sabotaging, and then, we start everyone rising up! It worked for the French Revolution in th18 century, the Russian Revolution in the 19th century, and the Chi-coms in the 20th…”
“...you sure you want us associated with those crews, dear brother?”
“I’m not talking about the aftermaths! I’m talking about overthrowing a corrupt dictatorship and bringing back what had been in place before! Same methods, different motives, different outcomes! If you look at Sun-Tzu…”
“No, no, you win, you’re right,” Austin said, giving the rifle back to the relieved guard. The others in the room visibly relaxed as well, and stopped looking to Huston every few seconds for orders. When Austin turned to face the wall for a moment, Huston made a small nod and gesture, and the remaining guards in the room silently re-clicked the safeties back onto their rifles and left the room.
“Of course I am. They’ve survived this long, another week shouldn’t be too difficult.”
Huston turned back to face the screen and the picture that had so upset Austin a few seconds ago.
On the right side of the screen, next to the statue of their little brother’s new cult, were the rotating facial images of their mother and father.
Both images had prisoner numbers and their birthdates below them, and both wore on their visible shoulders the infamous light-red-and-yellow jumpsuits of the Golgotha penal colony.
TO BE CONTINUED!